The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is visually stunning and chock-full of references and Easter eggs Nintendo fans will appreciate. However, it struggles due to an underdeveloped story and inconsistent character motivations. Still, the strengths of the visual effects, intricate worlds, and fan-favorite characters make it an enjoyable journey for most viewers who liked the first movie.

(Spoilers Ahead!)

Synopsis

Mario and Luigi have become traveling heroes, visiting different worlds to help the inhabitants in each. The film opens with them arriving at a desert world where they find Yoshi, who had been the source of eerie sounds near the village. After freeing the trapped dinosaur, he joins the brothers, and the three become fast friends.

After returning to Princess Peach’s castle, we learn Bowser is still shrunk like he was at the end of the first movie, but his living quarters have been upgraded, apparently for good behavior. He gets a visit from the brothers and attempts to convince them he’s turned over a new leaf. Luigi seems ready to believe him, but Mario’s skepticism causes Bowser to lose his temper and then sheepishly backpedal.

Meanwhile, we see Princess Rosalina in her observatory with the stars she regards as her children. They are attacked by Bowser Jr. who kidnaps Rosalina, intending to use her powers for some nefarious plan. One of the star children escapes and travels to Princess Peach.

Peach sets out in search of Rosalina while Mario and Luigi stay behind to guard the castle. While on duty, however, they are attacked by Bowser Jr, who uses his spacecraft to levitate the castle into space. During a battle with the brothers and Yoshi, however, the castle is dropped into the beehive world. The shrunken Bowser Sr. is freed from his cage, only to be caught by the brothers, but then provokes Mario into hitting him, thus causing him to lose the poison mushroom power-up that had been keeping him shrunk. Rather than turning around to attack them however, he thanks Mario, and even offers himself to the Queen Bee to work off the damage done to their field, allowing the brothers to leave the planet in peace, and signaling to them that he has indeed reformed.

Meanwhile, Peach and Toad travel to Gateway Galaxy in search of information on Rosalina’s whereabouts, and after being informed where she’s being held, they hire Fox McCloud to take them there. Before taking off, they are reunited with the brothers, who join them in their journey.

Bowser Sr, however, is rescued from the beehive world by his son, who tells his father about his plan to rule the galaxy. While traveling together, they intercept the heroes. Bowser asks his son not to kill them, so Junior instead uses a gun that turns them into babies, and they crash-land onto a planet filled with dinosaurs before eventually changing back. They are then able to communicate with the stars left at the observatory, who board a ship of their own and rescue from the planet of dinosaurs.

Junior takes Bowser to a planet where he is holding Rosalina, and over the course of revealing his plan to use her powers to charge a massive weapon to allow them to rule the galaxy, he convinces Bowser to return to his evil ways. Their plans are foiled however by Fox piloting the ship to the planet and allowing the heroes to save the day by the brothers knocking Bowser into the lava (turning him into Dry Bowser) and Peach realizing her relationship with Rosalina and the stars themselves, which allows them to connect and use their combined powers to destroy her prison and the weapon.

Where it shines

To call this film “visually stunning” feels like underselling it. The visual effects, the intricate worlds, and the interesting characters were all a treat to behold. And the Easter eggs!!

I loved all the references hidden among the background and secondary characters, the subtle (and not-so-subtle) nods to different Mario games and other Nintendo properties, and the really cool worlds visited. I enjoyed seeing ROB, Birdo, the Pikmin, Baby Mario and Luigi, and the Plantas, even if none of them were around for very long. There was always something going on that the careful watcher could appreciate, and I think it will be fun to watch it again to see what I missed on the first viewing!

I loved seeing Fox McCloud, and I was far from the only one! The excitement over his inclusion in the film was palpable (especially from the furry community!) There was arguably no reason for him to be in a Mario movie, but I loved every moment he was on screen anyway. He did a great job of pulling off that dashing space rogue character without being obnoxious or pointlessly rude to the other characters. He was cocky, but genuinely friendly, which reminded me of his character in Star Fox Adventures.

Speaking of Star Fox Adventures, when Fox and the gang crash landed on a planet inhabited by dinosaurs (a Dinosaur Planet, if you will) I wondered for the briefest of moments if a certain other space fox, of the more feminine persuasion, would make an appearance…

Alas, it wasn’t to be. Perhaps my teenage proto-furry crush will make an appearance in a future Star Fox movie.

I loved Yoshi. It was adorable how all his different vocalizations and mannerisms were worked into the film. I also loved how Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi were all unfailingly loyal to each other. Luigi could have been jealous of Yoshi, or Mario could have gotten carried away with his new dinosaur pal and neglected Luigi, but neither ever happened. The Mario Bros stick together, and Yoshi was as good as a member of their family from the moment he appeared. Which was probably a good thing, since any drama between them would have been another thing this movie would have had to keep track of, and it already had a lot going on! Which brings us to…

Where it falls down

First, the many different worlds visited reveal the movie’s biggest weakness: it felt very disjointed. The heroes were constantly moving from place to place, and as cool as each location was, we didn’t stick around in any of them long enough for it to feel like we’d fully appreciated it. I felt like they could have cut the number of locations in half and still had plenty of material for a good movie, and then have material for the next one. Instead, it felt like a speedrun through as many different Mario-related venues as possible.

Not only did the worlds feel disjointed, but so did Bowser’s character arc. They were clearly going for a “maybe he’s reformed” kind of storyline. They could have very easily gone the “He pretended to be good so he could get out, but then he stabbed them all in the back” route. Or they could have gone with, “He was on the verge of changing his ways, but then the allure of power drew him back to evil.” Either would have worked. Instead, they went with a kind of half-baked, middle-of-the-road version in which he did a terrible job of pretending he’d reformed, Luigi somehow believed him, he tricked Mario into turning him big again, he revealed that he actually had reformed to where he was actually willing to sacrifice himself for the Mario Bros, then when rescued by his son he told him not to kill them, then immediately showed no hesitation about trying to kill them himself later. It was a mess. We got no solid grasp of what his actual motivations were, which was a lost opportunity to give his character some depth.

Finally, Bowser and Junior’s relationship was kind of sweet but also rather awkward, in that it seemed that his son was the one influencing him to return to his evil ways. Maybe that was supposed to be a funny subversion, but it didn’t really land for me. We never really got to know Junior, so their relationship felt tacked on at best, and the will-he-won’t-he with Bowser’s failed redemption arc stood in the way.

So… why do I love it??

I feel like I shouldn’t have enjoyed this film nearly as much as I did. But despite its very serious flaws, I had a very enjoyable time! Something about seeing all the worlds and characters I’d grown up with as a GameCube kid sparked immeasurable joy, and it was absolutely helped by just how earnest the film was. At no point did the film try to yank the rug out from under me and make me feel stupid for caring about the characters (even when they were the ones acting stupid). Whatever mistakes they might have made, I got the sense that the filmmakers loved these games as much as I did, and that they were having a blast bringing them to life.

I am still a bit saddened thinking about what this movie could have been. Especially considering how much I loved it as it is, it could have been truly phenomenal if they had trimmed the fat, tightened the story, and defined the characters’ motivations. Still, I do fully intend to watch it again, and the fact that it did so well with audiences (critics be darned!) combined with yet another tease at the end of the credits, means there will almost certainly be a third film. Here’s hoping they keep what the first two did well while fixing where the second fell short.

Oh, and Nintendo, since you’re clearly doing a “Nintendo Cinematic Universe” situation, I have one foolproof way for you to get some butts in seats (especially furry butts)…

Just sayin'.